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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25152451">Working Through the Unimaginable</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Storycat9/pseuds/Storycat9'>Storycat9</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Lucifer (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Chloe Decker Grows a Spine, Episode: s04e03 O Ye of Little Faith Father, F/M, I Wrote This While Listening to Hamilton, Post-Betrayal, Post-Devil Face Reveal to Chloe Decker, just communicate</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 03:40:29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,532</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25152451</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Storycat9/pseuds/Storycat9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Chloe tries to control a shudder as Lucifer turns to face her in full Devil face, stammering as he steps toward her. “Could you accept me like this?”<br/>Tears spill down her cheeks. “I don’t know!” she gasps.<br/>Lucifer’s face flashes back to normal, tears shining in dark eyes as he steps back. “Then I have my answer.” He turns away from her again, toward the balcony, hurt and grief and betrayal coming off like heatwaves.<br/>There’s a long, shuddering moment when the shame rises up and wants to overwhelm Chloe, when she wants to just run sobbing from the penthouse with her tail between her legs. She gets as far as the ground floor, but when the doors open Chloe stares out at the empty club and thinks, How many times are we going to do this?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Chloe Decker/Lucifer Morningstar</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>192</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Working Through the Unimaginable</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I was rewatching Lucifer seasons 1-4 to help plot out details for a different story, and happened to have the Hamilton soundtrack going downstairs during part of it. During one pivotal scene in Season 4, I started to wish I could give Chloe a little bit of Eliza Hamilton's spine, so I tried to reimagine how it might go differently. Bonus: Some lyrics that come in a very different context but very much suited Deckerstar at this point are posted at the end.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“How could you do that to me? <em>To me</em>?”</p><p>The mix of pain and bewilderment and dawning rage on Lucifer Morningstar’s face is worse than any expression Chloe Decker has ever seen him turn on a murder suspect, and now that the would-be murderer confessing is <em>her</em>, Chloe understands why so many suspects ended up quaking on the floor in front of him.</p><p>What would the King of Hell do to punish <em>anyone</em> who dared share his secrets with that zealot Father Kinley and plot even for a little while to send him back to Hell—much less his trusted partner, whom he’d gone through so much to save, time and again? And then the next moment, she feels a wave of guilt from knowing that the very thought was traitorous, considering how much time and effort Lucifer has spent trying to convince Chloe that he would never hurt her.</p><p>“Because I’m terrified!” she cries out. “You are the actual Devil. I mean, every story of good and bad from throughout history, throughout time says that you are the embodiment of evil and- and- and how am I, Chloe Decker, a nobody, supposed to deal with that?”</p><p>Lucifer’s eyes snap wide as though she’d slapped him. He turns abruptly and steps away, unable to even look at her.</p><p>“… B-but then I came back,” Chloe goes on haltingly, “and I saw you. I really saw you, and I remembered how you made me feel. And I realized, Lucifer, you’re not that guy.”</p><p>“No?” he says. “What if I am that guy?”</p><p>“You don’t have to be. You can change.”</p><p>“But what if I can’t?”</p><p>Chloe tries to control a shudder as Lucifer turns to face her in full Devil face, stammering as he steps toward her. “Could you accept me like this?” </p><p>“You have no idea how much I want to. I do. I’m trying.”</p><p>“But could you?” he presses.</p><p>Tears spill down her cheeks. “I don’t <em>know</em>!” she gasps.</p><p>Lucifer’s face flashes back to normal, tears shining in dark eyes as he steps back. “Then I have my answer.” He turns away from her again, toward the balcony, hurt and grief and betrayal coming off like heatwaves.</p><p>There’s a long, shuddering moment when the shame rises up and wants to overwhelm Chloe, when she wants to just run sobbing from the penthouse with her tail between her legs. She gets as far as the ground floor, but when the doors open Chloe stares out at the empty club and thinks, <em>How many times are we going to do this?</em></p><p>
  <em>How many times will he nearly die? Or I nearly die? If I walked out and got hit by a bus, would it matter whether I went to Heaven or Hell if I never had been able to face him?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>No.</em>
</p><p>Chloe slams her hand back on the PH button and scrubs angrily at her eyes as the elevator returns. When the bell chimes and the doors open, she sees Lucifer in the same spot, hands clenched on the rail in front of him and head down.</p><p>At the sound of her boots stepping out of the lift he grounds out icily, “I think we’ve said all there is to say to each other, Detective.”</p><p>Chloe laughs, and <em>that</em> turns Lucifer around, because it doesn’t sound like Chloe at all, but like Mazikeen: high and wild and not quite sane, the laugh of someone about to hurl herself into battle with the King of Hell.</p><p>“All we have to say, Lucifer? No, I don’t think so.” Chloe stalks over to him, tears still coming but the color high on her cheeks and her hands balled into fists at her sides.</p><p>“All those times I saw strange things happen around you, all those times you should have been hurt—or killed—and weren’t, I knew you weren’t telling me everything. I knew. I kept begging you to explain. And you say you always told me the truth. Yes. And then you counted on me to not believe you, you watched me twist myself in knots to justify the unimaginable, just like you did with everybody else."</p><p>Lucifer’s brows draw in anger ... and a little flicker of guilt? Maybe.</p><p>“You would ask me out and not show up, we’d kiss and then you seemed to want nothing to do with me … And every time I pushed, or you promised you were about to tell me ‘the whole truth’ and prove it to me, then all of a sudden you would be gone. You’d be kidnapped … or married for two weeks … or- or- or <em>something</em>, so that we were back at square one again.”</p><p>Chloe can feel her voice picking up speed, tries to stop it, can’t.</p><p>“And the whole time I was trying to understand you, I was finding out the father of my daughter was crooked, the guy I got engaged to was some kind of murderous criminal mastermind. … It’s just one gaslight after another ... Now a Vatican priest claims I’m going to destroy my daughter and the entire world for l-loving you … and I did think about helping him, I did, but I also told him he was wrong about you and I wasn't going to do it. And I should have come straight to you but for somebody who’s supposed to be a smart cop I am just so … fucking … stupid …”</p><p>Chloe’s voice cracks and she stops, chest heaving for long moments as she tries to go on, her hands clenching and unclenching.</p><p>Lucifer stills. “Chloe, did you ju-“</p><p>“Lucifer, it wasn’t fair to you for me to react the way I did to your other face,” she breaks in, “but it also isn’t fair for you to say I’ve given you an answer when I don’t even know all the questions to ask. … I need you to show me.”</p><p>His eyes narrow and his mouth twists, realizing. “I thought I’d done that already. Twice.”</p><p>For someone not demon-born, Chloe’s eyes do a pretty fair impression of his own hellfire. “Show me again.”</p><p>“Fine, detective,” he snaps. “Take a better look this time.”</p><p>Some raging, desperate piece of himself lets go, and Lucifer feels the bizarre combination of his Devil face and his angel wings, still not fully healed from the battle with Cain, materialize at the same time. He sees Chloe’s face pale and starts to step back, but she lunges forward, grasping both of his burn-scarred wrists in her hands and pulling him back as though he’d been about to tumble off the edge.</p><p>Maybe he had been.</p><p>They stare at each other and Lucifer finds himself unable to change back, unable to move, unable to do anything at all as her hands hold his still and her eyes move over him. He gives himself up for lost.</p><p>“I see you, Lucifer,” she whispers. “I do. I don’t pretend to know what to do with it yet, or how long it will take to not be afraid anymore.” He tries to pull back at that and her hands tighten, stopping him as though he didn’t have infinitely greater strength. “I don’t know how to trust myself or anything right now. But I’m trying.”</p><p>It isn’t perfect. It isn’t anything built up in Lucifer’s head over months and years of amorous or anguished or optimistic fantasy. The detective isn’t swooning into his arms or pledging her undying devotion, and if she did he’s not sure he could trust her on it. She betrayed his secrets to the Church; she thought about killing him even if she decided against it in the end. She’s looks broken and exhausted and blotchy with ugly-crying, and her eyes are still terrified, but they are steady on his, even in the face of his hellfire. And–</p><p>“Det- Chloe. Did you say just now that you … loved me?”</p><p>She takes a shuddering breath. “I did and do … I love you.”</p><p>And then Lucifer’s eyes are wide and dark again. He pulls Chloe into an embrace and his wounded white wings cover them both. When she doesn't flinch, Lucifer strokes her back and rests his head against her hair.</p><p>“You’re right, humans tend to push away what they can’t understand, and I’ve relied on that. I've never had to lie, just … not force the issue. I didn't push harder with you because I didn’t want to risk never seeing you again,” he admits. “I still don’t want to take that risk. We both need time, but can you—”</p><p>Chloe lifts her head to face him. “Let me stay here with you? For tonight, at least. Just … please let me stay.”</p><p>In answer, he smiles, and his dark eyes shine like the stars he made once upon a time. He doesn’t try to kiss her, and she doesn’t ask him whether he loves her back. His wings retract and they curl up silently on his sofa, just holding each other’s hands and leaning against each other. Neither really knows more than that a million challenges still face them in the morning. But seeing Chloe smile in the circle of his arms, Lucifer thinks, <em>It’s enough. For now, it’s enough.</em></p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Here are the related pieces in two duets between Alexander and Eliza that keep making me think of Chloe and Lucifer:</p><p>From "That Would Be Enough":<br/>Look at where you are<br/>Look at where you started<br/>The fact that you're alive is a miracle<br/>Just stay alive, that would be enough<br/>...<br/>I don't pretend to know<br/>The challenges you're facing<br/>The worlds you keep erasing and creating in your mind<br/>But I'm not afraid<br/>I know who I married<br/>So long as you come home at the end of the day<br/>That would be enough<br/>We don't need a legacy<br/>We don't need money<br/>If I could grant you peace of mind<br/>If you could let me inside your heart<br/>Oh, let me be a part of the narrative<br/>In the story they will write someday<br/>Let this moment be the first chapter<br/>Where you decide to stay<br/>And I could be enough<br/>And we could be enough<br/>That would be enough</p><p>and from<br/>"It's Quiet Uptown" (Mazikeen couldn't stay dry-eyed listening to this one, btw, if you haven't heard it.)</p><p>There are moments that the words don't reach<br/>There is suffering too terrible to name<br/>You hold your child as tight as you can<br/>And push away the unimaginable<br/>The moments when you're in so deep<br/>It feels easier to just swim down<br/>The Hamiltons move uptown<br/>And learn to live with the unimaginable ...</p><p>Look at where we are<br/>Look at where we started<br/>I know I don't deserve you ...<br/>But hear me out<br/>That would be enough ...<br/>I don't pretend to know<br/>The challenges we're facing<br/>I know there's no replacing what we've lost<br/>And you need time<br/>But I'm not afraid<br/>I know who I married<br/>Just let me stay here by your side<br/>That would be enough...</p><p>If you see him in the street, walking by her side<br/>Talking by her side, have pity<br/>They are going through the unimaginable.</p><p>There are moments that the words don't reach<br/>There is a grace too powerful to name<br/>We push away what we can never understand<br/>We push away the unimaginable</p><p>They are standing in the garden<br/>Alexander by Eliza's side<br/>She takes his hand<br/>It's quiet uptown</p></blockquote></div></div>
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